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-Caveat Lector-
Gary North's REALITY CHECK
Issue 203 January 2, 2003
TOMBSTONE, 2003
When you hear the word, "tombstone," what comes to
your mind?
Do you think of a granite slab in a cemetery? You're
obviously old. Besides, there aren't many tombstones any
more. There are horizontal plaques buried in the ground.
That's because of motorized lawn mowers. A motorized lawn
mower with wide blades can't cut grass immediately around a
tombstone. They can drive over plaques. Tombstones are
high-maintenance memorials. The economics of lawn
maintenance has cut down tombstones.
Then there are those full-page ads in the WALL STREET
JOURNAL. We don't see them as much any more. Back when
there were no negotiated fees for stock purchases, the
large brokerage firms had an oligopoly. A firm would run a
large ad in small print for a new corporate bond issue or
other investment. No one was expected to read the ad, any
more than anyone is expected to read a prospectus. The
tombstone ad and the prospectus are not there to protect
the investors. They are there to protect the Securities
and Exchange Commission and the issuing brokerage firm,
who, after the investment turns into Global Crossing II,
can say, "We revealed that risk up front, so it's not our
fault." Of course, now that the SEC has been called on the
carpet for the huge bankruptcies of 2002, it has stepped up
the reporting requirements, to make the prospectuses even
longer and less likely to be read.
http://www.sec.gov/news/press/2002-66.htm
Today, the old oligopoly barely functions, so the
large firms -- under heavy price competition -- have found
less expensive ways to meet SEC requirements. The
economics of advertising has cut down the number of
tombstone ads in newspapers. Today, we are asked to read
far fatter booklets, which we never do, instead of large,
fine-print ads, which we never did.
But some of us, when we hear the word "tombstone,"
immediately think of a small-town business establishment in
the equestrian trade. I mean, of course, the OK Corral.
That's the tombstone I want to talk about today.
BRAVE, COURAGEOUS, AND BOLD
I think it was in 1954 that my neighbor, Captain
Billy, handed me a copy of Stewart Lake's WYATT EARP,
FRONTIER MARSHAL. I read it, and I was hooked. I was
probably 12 years old. Lake's book had been written in
1931, two years after Earp died. It reinforced the Earp
legend, which has continued to grow. Movies on Earp have
been continual ever since, culminating in 1994: "Tombstone"
and "Wyatt Earp," both of which were reasonably accurate,
unlike all of the others, and one of which made money:
"Tombstone."
In 1955, Hugh O'Brian starred in a TV series, "The
Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp," which became a hit and
survived for over 200 shows. It didn't go into syndication
after 1960, so we don't see it on cable. It was
sensationally popular. Lake got what every author wants: a
bonanza a quarter century after his book is published.
Lake legally licensed everything with Wyatt Earp's name on
it: lunch boxes, toy guns, the works.
Side note: O'Brian decided to go the whole nine
yards (the length of a .50 caliber machine-gun
ammo belt in World War II) with his new TV
persona. He took up fast-draw shooting. I can
recall, 40 years later, a story about his skill.
He could draw and fire in four-tenths of a
second. As a graduate of Col. Jeff Cooper's
combat handgunning course, let me tell you,
that's fast. O'Brian issued a challenge to any
cowboy movie actor to beat him in a timed, filmed
draw. Nobody took him up on it. But one man
could have, the fastest man in Hollywood's West:
Sammy Davis, Jr. Sammy reputedly could do "the
trick": extend his hand, put a glass on top of
it, pull back his hand, draw, fire, and shatter
the glass before it hit the ground. He was
ranked third or fourth nationally in quick draw
competition, which was the rage in the late
1950's. As he used to say, "It only takes one
good eye to shoot."
Side, side note: how fast is fast? I mean,
really, truly fast? Bob Munden can draw and fire
a single-action .45 revolver -- a pull-the-
hammer, Old West-type gun -- in 0.0175 seconds.
The blink of an eye is 0.15 seconds. You'd never
see it coming.
http://www.sixguns.com/range/munden.htm
As for modern double-action revolvers, the
fastest pistol shooter on earth in the 1930's was
a senior citizen, Ed McGivern (1874-1957). His
trigger finger was legendary. With gun in hand,
he once fired five rounds from his Smith & Wesson
.38 into a target the size of a playing card at
18 feet in two-fifths of a second. At 200 yards,
he could shoot from the hip and take down a man-
sized target with his .38. With a .357 magnum,
he could do it at 600 yards. I have this mental
image of a scene from a B-western. From over a
quarter mile away, a bad guy yells, "I'm giving
you fair warning, McGivern. I'm calling you out.
In five minutes, your gonna meet your. . . ."
Plop.]
Final note: the price of reading a newsletter
written by a frustrated historian is putting up
with stuff like this.]
The Earp phenomenon was based on the most famous
gunfight in the Old West, the fight at the OK Corral. As a
revisionist historian, I hasten to add that the fight
didn't actually take place at the OK Corral. It took place
in a lot behind the OK Corral. But "Gunfight at the Lot
Behind the OK Corral" just doesn't have the ring of a
blockbuster movie.
The best book I have read on Earp is Allen Barra's
INVENTING WYATT EARP: HIS LIFE AND MANY LEGENDS (1998). It
is basically favorable to Earp. Earp was a gambler back
when gambling was considered respectable. With his
winnings, he once helped fund the construction of the first
church in Tombstone, an Episcopal church pastored by
Endicott Peabody -- yes, that Endicott Peabody, who became
the headmaster of Groton and who trained Franklin D.
Roosevelt, the biggest gambler of all (Pearl Harbor).
(See Robert Stinnett, DAY OF DECEIT.)
What has all this got to do with 2002? Directly,
nothing. Indirectly, a lot.
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SOUTH OF THE BORDER, DOWN MEXICO WAY
Tombstone is in Cochise County. (The Apache's name
was actually spelled Cachise, but the county fathers got it
wrong.) It's quite close to the Mexican border. It is so
close that the cattle rustlers in Earp's era would raid the
Mexicans constantly. There was not much water in Cochise
County. Cattle ranching was more profitable across the
border. For Arizonans, it was cheaper to rustle cattle
than raise them.
The loosely associated gangs of rustlers were called
cowboys, and the name stuck. In those days, it wasn't
cowboys and Indians. It was cowboys and Mexicans. The
cowboys were the bad guys.
There was not much local law enforcement in the
county. The locals resisted the U.S. government and its
marshals. Wyatt Earp was an assistant U.S. Marshal, so he
had lots of local enemies. His brother Virgil was town
marshall. It was under his authority that the gunfight
took place.
The border wars really were wars. Sometimes, they
were gang wars. In a famous incident in the summer of
1881, the gang run by Newton "Old Man" Clanton attacked a
Mexican gang of thieves that was bringing a horde of stolen
loot to Tucson. In Skeleton Canyon, the Clantons killed
something like 20 Mexicans. But two dozen mules were also
killed, so the gang had trouble taking out the loot. They
had to bury most of it. The gang's members were mostly
dead within a year. The loot has never officially been
found.
http://www.theoutlaws.com/gold5.htm
A month later, the Mexican federales responded -- at
least some historians think it was the federales. The
Skeleton Canyon massacre may have been the reason: "You
can't kill our bandits -- they're ours!" Or it may have
been because of the continuing rustling by the Clantons.
The federales, stinking badges and all, crossed the border
into Arizona. In Guadalupe Canyon, which was a sort of
neutral area where gangs on both sides of the border
operated, the federales ambushed the Clantons. At least
five men were killed, including Old Man Clanton.
In October, the OK Corral incident took place.
What is my point? It's beginning to happen again.
The Cochise County border is becoming a sieve, just as it
was in 1881. The old resentments on the Mexican side of
the border, coupled with jobs and money on the American
side, have combined to bring the "rustlers" up from Mexico.
They are trying to rustle low-wage jobs. Americans who
live close to the border are losing control over their way
of life.
In a revealing article in WORLD NET DAILY (Oct. 19,
2001). As you read these extracts, think "Homeland
Security" and "airport searches."
COCHISE COUNTY, Ariz. -- The U.S.-Mexican border
here is the most heavily used corridor for
illegal alien traffic on America's southern
boundary. With its difficult topography that is
folded, creased and convoluted, it is a land that
yields well to smuggling. The Huachuca,
Chiricahua, Dragoon and Whetstone Mountains are
riddled with hundreds of deep canyons, caves and
arroyos that offer superb concealment for the
hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens that
annually cross here.
The numbers of unauthorized immigrants smuggled
across this porous border dumbfound the
imagination. To date, the U.S. Border Patrol has
apprehended 158,782 illegals in 2001. By the
Border Patrol's own admission, it catches one
alien in five, and admits that around 800,000
have slipped across the U.S. line this year. The
local ranchers, who have been watching the border
for several generations, strongly disagree. They
contend the agency only nets one in 10, and
estimate that in 2001 over 1.5 million unlawful
immigrants have crossed into America in what the
Border Patrol calls the Tucson Sector. . . .
Another agent, of supervisory rank, stated, "The
smuggling traffic of Mexicans has really slowed.
We are experiencing a tremendous increase in
OTMs" -- border lingo for "other than Mexicans."
When queried about the ethnic make up of the
OTMs, he answered, "Central and South Americans,
Orientals and Middle-Easterners." Middle-
Easterners? "Yeah, it varies, but about one in
every 10 that we catch, is from a country like
Yemen or Egypt." . . .
Arabs have been reported crossing the Arizona
border for an unknown period. Border rancher
George Morgan encounters thousands of illegals
crossing his ranch on a well-used trail. He
relates a holiday event: "It was Thanksgiving
1998, and I stepped outside my house and there
were over a hundred 'crossers' in my yard.
Damnedest bunch of illegals I ever saw. All of
them were wearing black pants, white shirts and
string ties. Maybe they were hoping to blend in,"
he chuckled. "They took off, I called the Border
Patrol, and a while later, an agent, Dan Green,
let me know that they had caught them. He said
that they were all Iranians." . . .
Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., in an Oct. 9 speech
to the House of Representatives, stated, "It's
almost incredible to recognize, as part of the
overall strategy this government is going to
employ to deal with the issue of terrorism, that
we would not concentrate heavily on securing our
borders and try to do everything humanly possible
to stop people, who have evil intent, from coming
into the United States." . . .
Reporter's personal note: "I do not see how the
folks living along this border keep going. I am a
former U.S. Marine sergeant, and yet the presence
of so much apparent violence spooked me. In
researching this story, I went backcountry on
quad-runners with a goodly couple, Larry and Toni
Vance. The first thing they asked me was if I
brought a sidearm. When I said, 'no,' they
promptly gave me a wheel-gun to strap on. To tell
you the truth, that lump of metal was comforting.
It's not wise to travel unarmed in a war zone."
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=24987
A nation that cannot secure its borders might as well
make plans to become a very different nation.
It is obvious that the 4,000-mile Mexican border with
the United States cannot be sealed, but at least it could
be monitored more closely. Meanwhile, we have troops
stationed in over a hundred countries, and tens of
thousands heading to Iraq. The U.S. government is about to
launch a war against people who have long memories and a
lot of grievances.
Which brings me to the next part of the Tombstone
story.
THE VENDETTA RIDE
Wyatt Earp was a murderer. No other word should be
substituted.
After the famous gunfight, Marshal Virgil Earp was
shot, but not killed, by would-be assassins. Then Morgan
Earp was gunned down in a pool hall by unknown assassins.
He died on the poll table. Wyatt then took Virgil to a
train in Tucson to send him to their father's home in
California. A few weeks before, Wyatt had resigned as
deputy U.S. Marshall. (Barra, INVENTING WYATT EARP, p.
243.)
At the train station, Wyatt spotted Frank Stillwell,
whom he suspected of having killed Morgan. He went after
Stillwell on foot, who ran for his life. When he caught
Stilwell, he blew him away with a shotgun. The next day,
the body was found, riddled with bullets.
Earp was not arrested.
A few days later, Earp and his associates -- called a
posse by Barra -- began what Barra accurately identifies as
the Vendetta Ride. It is accurately portrayed in
"Tombstone."
Earp interrogated one suspect, who admitted that he
had stood guard for the others when they killed Morgan.
When Earp learned that the man had been paid $25, he told
him to draw. He would give him three seconds. The man did
not draw, and Earp shot him.
Three seconds is not much time. Jeff Cooper taught us
that if you can draw and fire in less than three seconds,
you could kill a person who had drawn a gun on you. "If he
hasn't shot you yet, he has a reason. Something is holding
him back. If he is not a professional gunman, it will take
him three seconds to respond." I learned to do this in two
seconds -- facing a dummy, of course. Facing a man with a
drawn gun is something else entirely.
The victim was facing Earp and others in the "posse."
Earp was a master with a pistol. He was basically shooting
the man down in cold blood. There were witnesses.
Then began the ride. Earp, Doc Holliday, and the
others went looking for the remnants of the Clanton gang.
One by one, they killed them.
Then they left Arizona, never to return.
The governor did not pursue the matter. Earp was
never extradited or even charged with these murders. The
governor probably figured the gang had it coming to them.
THE SADDAM GANG
Like the federales who crossed the border to take out
Old Man Clanton, and like Wyatt Earp and his "posse," the
United States government is about to launch a pre-emptive
war in Iraq.
We have been shooting down planes in no-fly zones for
over a decade. This has not been authorized by the United
Nations. It has been a bi-partisan unilateral decision.
http://www.fff.org/comment/com0211h.asp
http://www.slate.msn.com/id/2074302/
http://www.foreignpolicy-infocus.org/commentary/2002/0212nofly_body.html
This foreign policy has led to atrocities, as war
always does. Here is a report by British journalist John
Pilger, an opponent of the war against Iraq.
The term "combat" is highly deceptive. Iraq has
virtually no air force and no modern air
defences. Thus, "combat" means dropping bombs or
firing missiles at infrastructure that has been
laid to waste by a 12-year-old embargo.
The Wall Street Journal, the authentic voice of
the American establishment, described this
eloquently when it reported that the US faced "a
genuine dilemma" in Iraq. After eight years of
enforcing a no fly zone in northern (and
southern) Iraq, few targets remain. "We're down
to the last outhouse," one US official protested.
I have seen the result of these attacks. When I
drove from the northern city of Mosul three years
ago, I saw the remains of an agricultural water
tanker and truck, riddled with bullet holes,
shrapnel from a missile, a shoe and the wool and
skeletons of about 150 sheep.
A family of six, a shepherd, his father and his
wife and four children, were blown to pieces
here. It was treeless, open country: a moonscape.
The shepherd, his family and his sheep would have
been clearly visible from the air. . . .
The shepherd's brother told me, "I heard
explosions, and when I arrived to look for my
brother and family, the planes were circling
overhead. I hadn't reached the causeway when the
fourth bombardment took place. The last two
rockets hit them.
"At the time I couldn't grasp what was going on.
The truck was burning. It was a big truck, but it
was ripped to pieces. Nothing remained except the
tyres and the numberplate.
"We saw three corpses, but the rest were just
body parts. With the last rocket, I could see the
sheep blasted into the air."
It was not known if American or British aircraft
had done this. When details of the attack were
put to the Ministry of Defence in London, an
official said, "We reserve the right to take
robust action when threatened." This attack was
significant, because it was investigated and
verified by the senior United Nations official in
Iraq at the time, Hans Von Sponeck, who drove
there specially from Baghdad.
He confirmed that nothing nearby resembled a
military installation.
http://pilger.carlton.com/print
And so it goes. So it will go if we invade.
There is no doubt in my mind that Saddam Hussein is a
lot worse than Old Man Clanton. But the Mexican federales
did not belong inside our borders in 1881, and Wyatt Earp
did not have the lawful authority to kill the remainder of
the Clanton gang.
This is a vendetta ride. George W. Bush is determined
to settle his father's score with Old Man Saddam. And the
American public cheers. It's like watching a movie.
Nobody gets hurt except the bad guys.
POROUS BORDERS
At home, we are being subjected to the loss of our
freedom in the name of homeland security, yet the crucial
factor in national security -- a nation's ability to defend
its borders -- is missing.
I have reported many times on my friend Arthur
Robinson's assessment of how little it would cost for a
team of one biochemist and two grad students to launch an
anthrax attack on a major city. Dr. Robinson is a chemist
by training and a specialist in biochemistry. He is one of
the world's leading experts on longevity. He says that a
nation that cannot defend its borders is not pursuing
longevity. Here is what I wrote in the aftermath of
September 11.
When Dr. Arthur Robinson, a biochemist, and I
wrote our book-long tract favoring a national
civil defense shelter system, Fighting Chance
(1986), we had in mind biological weapons as well
as nuclear. This nation's civilian population has
never been considered worth protecting. To do so
would be opposed to MAD.
When researching the topic of civil defense at
the Oak Ridge National Laboratories, Robinson met
the long-time director of the civil defense
research program, Conrad Chester. Robinson used
this library extensively. (The U.S. government
ordered this library destroyed after Chester
retired.)
After his retirement, Chester stayed in contact
with Robinson. Chester once wrote a paper for a
group that Robinson is associated with, Doctors
for Disaster Preparedness. It went into detail
about how a small terrorist group could use
home-brew anthrax to kill at least 90% of the
population of New York City, or any major city,
24 hours after they released it into the
atmosphere, i.e., 12 hours after they had fled
the country. Robinson persuaded him not to go
into the details, merely use his authority to
persuade the audience. Chester complied --
wisely, I think. (Chester later died of natural
causes.)
Robinson tells me that any skilled Ph.D in
biology could do what Chester described, using
used equipment that costs $25,000. New, it would
cost $250,000. All he would need in addition to
the equipment is a year's time and a pair of
M.A.-level graduate students in biology.
http://www.lewrockwell.com/north/north57.html
CONCLUSION
I expect that Hans Blix and the weapons inspectors
will find nothing. The question is this: How long will the
inspectors be permitted by President Bush to continue
looking? If they are forced out by the threat of becoming
collateral damage by "friendly fire," the Islamic world
will seek revenge by representatives. There will be lots
of volunteers. The Old Man of the Mountain (Osama bin
Laden), dead or alive, will get lots of recruits.
What Fred Reed wrote over two years ago, regarding
nuclear bombs in a truck (far more expensive and therefore
far less likely than anthrax in a van), remains true:
If Iraq nuked us, we'd turn the place into a
geologic lava-lamp, and they know it. So they
won't. But if the Red People's Liberation Jihad
Army Hoopty-Squat Dirtbag Guevarist Fifth-of
Some-Month Movement did it, well, we might catch
a few of them. But so what? Hoopty-squat dirtbags
are easy to replace.
We know how to get even with a country. We don't
know how to get even with six congenitally
furious goat-herds from an unsuccessful culture
with too much sand.
http://www.fredoneverything.net/Bombs.shtml
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